Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker?

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:18 pm

I guess I am a smoker/accumulator. I am always looking for pipes, but I have yet to buy a unused pipe, all my pipes are "pre-owned". I don't dignify my accumulation by calling it a collection because I do not have a theme for my purchases, other than I am looking for another "great smoker".
If my budget was different I might be tempted to collect. However I have less than ten pipes that are for display only, and none are of the variety that smoking would materially lessen their value.
Would I buy a pipe as a "work of art", possibly, but I can't see it as burning desire.

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:54 pm

Back when eBay was still a flea market, I used to enjoy getting old Irish and English pipes (pre-Cadogan era) that were distinctly nice, but going cheap because they were offered by housewives in Illinois and weren't spit polish shiny.

The gems went off to restorers for the kind of light cosmetic stuff I couldn't do myself. When they came back just too nice to put any more miles on, they went into boxes with lids to keep the light from oxydising the stems. Where they remain today.

So a 1923 Peterson System Patent, a BBB Own Make Virgin bulldog and a Comoy bulldog, along with a couple other pre-republic Petersons are honorably retired from active service, after the fact.

The smokers (except for one Cavicchi) are equally old, and almost equally nice. Except now that LL custom-tuned lucite replacement stems are available, they get smoked.

What a Face

Number of posts: 5 Registration date: 2007-12-23

I'm both. While I smoke most of my pipes, I do have a certain number I have never smoked as I love them in their pristine condition.

Number of posts: 1095 Registration date: 2008-11-09

A thought:

If one has spent more money on pipes than on tobacco, one is a collector. If one has spent more money on tobacco than on pipes, then one is a pipe smoker (or, perhaps a tobacco lover who just happens to enjoy it in pipes, as the case may be).

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Tue May 12, 2009 8:45 pm

Kapnismologist wrote:

A thought:

If one has spent more money on pipes than on tobacco, one is a collector. If one has spent more money on tobacco than on pipes, then one is a pipe smoker (or, perhaps a tobacco lover who just happens to enjoy it in pipes, as the case may be).

That sort of assumes that the money spent on tobacco is on tobacco smoked. Now time may prove them right, but some folks have enough tobacco cellared to last them for the next century, "just in case". Twisted Evil

I imagine there was some poor soul in New Orleans with the approach of Katrina was debating whether he should pack up the wife and kids, or the rest of his cellar. (as they say: "that's when the fight started....")

I am a smoker, I buy estate pipes to rehabilitate and hopefully improve my rotation. All the pipes i smoke are good enough, but some are definitely better than others, and I am always on the look for improvement. I would not hesitate to duplicate one of the "great smokers", because they are basically tools to me.

There are some who are acquirers. Caught in the clutches of PAD, they acquire new pipes like some people shop for shoes, ties, or fishing lures. As long as it isn't the mortgage or grocery money, or the kids college money, I suppose that is all right. There are wealthy acquirers, and there are poor acquirers, the latter may have a trunk full of rundown and broken cobs and Dr. Gs, and his smokers are held together with duct tape and wire.

Now collectors are a refined form of acquirer, and they have an area in which they collect. Alfred Dunhill collected pipes historically important in smoking, and it became a museum. A Bill Gates could attempt to collect, say, one of each Dunhill pipe made, and still be searching 50 years from now for the rarer pipes. A more limited Dunhill collection might target a sample of all the marking variations over the years.
On the other end of the spectrum there is a fantastic collector and collection of the innovative "the pipe". These pipes made of "rocket age" material were all the rage at one time, and sold as premium pipes everywhere, sold in the thousands. Now days they typically sell in the 5 to 20 dollar range. [See: http://www.thepipe.info/history/index.html ]

All the collectors have some theme and limit on where their interest lies. A collection could totally unsmokable, like historical clays, dug from the old outhouse holes of a western mining time (Well I wouldn't smoke 'em lol!

). It could be immanently smokable, a representative collection of Danish free form carvers, or Kaywoodie straight grain pipes.

Being a "collector" is more socially acceptable than being a "mere" accumulator. Very Happy

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Sun May 17, 2009 4:36 pm

Danish_Pipe_Guy wrote:

It seems an easy enough question to answer but if you think on it a bit it's really not. Of course you're a pipe smoker! We're all smokers of pipes but some of here also collect pipes that seldom get smoked and I suspect that there's even some folks here like me who occasionally buy pipes that will likely NEVER get smoked!

So now comes the question of how we define a pipe smoker and a pipe collector. I have good friends who collect pipes that cost several thousand dollars. These pipes are carefully smoked but not very often. The majority of these folks smoke one bowl of tobacco per day and have such large collections that it may take months for a pipe to come up again in their rotatation. Some even buy such elaborate and ornate pipes that to smoke them once would devalue them signifigantly. They sit on racks and are ocassionally taken out to look at and admire. I personally have a half dozen of these and have even felt a pang of guilt for owning something that doesn't get used. It seems a silly indulgence at times but when you start looking at them as an investment and tiny works of art it becomes a bit more palatible.

On the flip side of this are folks who buy pipes strictly to smoke. The true value of owning them weather they be expensive or modest is to smoke them. To own a pipe that doesn't get used at all would be rediculous to them.

I find that I fall somewhere in the middle of these two camps. I do indeed buy pipes that are seldom smoked and I buy pipes like my Stans which are smoked often. I usually average out at 4-5 bowls a day.

So, are you a collector, a smoker or a little bit of both?...

I've only owned one Dunhill in my life. It smoked like shit and I sold it. I agree with Dock.

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:07 am

It would be a little sad to own a stable full of prize winning Ferrari's only to have to admit that you don't know what it's like to drive one, in the same way that a rack full of unsmoked Dunhill's is kind of a shame. Ultimately however, there is no shortage of good/great pipes and pipe carvers nowadays, and does every single pipe need to be smoked? I think it's quite OK to reserve a few strictly for admiration. For me, admiring a pipe (as opposed to "using" a pipe) means holding it, feeling it's weight, tracing it's lines with a finger. It's as much a tactile pleasure as it is a visual one. As someone noted earlier, would you be content simply staring at a beautiful woman, or would you want to get your hands on her? If some mad scientist were to invent a very ugly, yet perfect smoking device, we may all rush out to buy one, but I don't anyone would stop wanting beautiful pipes to enjoy, in whichever way they choose. This may change, but currently I only smoke a small percentage of the pipes I own, but I LOVE those few... pirat

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:15 am

Pipe smoker here - no pipe shall go unsmoked in this house Smile

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:21 am

EJinVA wrote:

I never understood all these folks that buy pickup trucks and NEVER scratch

hauled anything in them for fear of SCRATCHING affraid

the bed.

(gonna have to get used to the new avatar ejinva)

smoker, but i do appreciate beauty in pipes. funny how 'what is beautiful' changes when an ugly pipe gives you a great smoke!

So far I smoke all my pipes but I'm sure one day I'll have pipe(s) that will be display only!

Guest

Smoker!
......... it must smoke really well too.........

Number of posts: 752 Registration date: 2010-06-26

I've never met a collector who isn't a serious, every day smoker. Do such folks actually exist? (not rhetorical)

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Sat Oct 23, 2010 6:14 pm

Zeno Marx wrote:

I've never met a collector who isn't a serious, every day smoker. Do such folks actually exist? (not rhetorical)

It would be pretty strange to
collect pipes and not smoke pipes.

Subject: Re: Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker? Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:03 pm

Let's see, I've been smoking a pipe for 43 years, I have accumulated a total of 24 pipes in that period of time. 8 of them since I've joined the BoB in June this year. Shocked

My most expensive pipe was a whopping $150. Umm, I reckon that makes me a smoker rather than a collector? I've never owned a Dunny but I can't imagine it smoking any better than my $23 Baraccini. To me it's like comparing a Corvette to a Silverado pickup. They both comfortably get you from point A to point B and you see the same sights along the way, but with the vette your riding in style. Smile

And yes I drive a Siverado. Neutral

Number of posts: 3617 Registration date: 2008-07-02

Boils down to ,,,does a "wizzmachi primo" with a payment book make you happy, or can a cob do the same thing,,,

_________________
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Socrates

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» The "Crossroads" Of Pipe Collecting
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Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker?

Are You A Pipe Collector or A Pipe Smoker?

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